Irish home loans in arrears for more than 90 days rose to 9.2 percent at the end of last year from 8.1 percent at the end of the third quarter, according to the country’s central bank.

A total of 107,708 home mortgages, or 14 percent of the total, were either 90 days in arrears or had been restructured and were performing at the end of December, the central bank said in an e-mailed statement today.

Lending fell by 3.3 percent in December from a year before, the biggest drop since Bank of Spain records started half a century ago, the regulator said on its website today. Bad loans as a proportion of total loans rose to 7.61 percent from 7.52 percent in November as borrowing considered “doubtful” jumped to 136 billion euros ($179 billion) from about 11 billion euros five years ago, before Spain’s property crash.

The prospect of a protracted recession in Spain is curbing the appetite for loans and making banks more cautious about lending. The economy may shrink 1.5 percent this year, according to central bank forecasts, while unemployment stands at 23 percent. Exane BNP Paribas predicts an economic contraction could stretch through 2013.

Banks piled up apartments and building land on their balance sheets as loans to property developers and mortgage borrowers soured during the crash. The government is talking to banks to try to reduce the number of people evicted from their homes for failing to pay their mortgages, Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said in an interview with state radio RNE late yesterday.

Deposits gathered by Spanish lenders declined 4.6 percent from a year earlier, the Bank of Spain said. Deposits increased 0.5 percent from November, the regulator said.

Misery in Spain

Various austerity measures, tax hikes, and cuts to regional governments ensure that the recession in Spain will be both long and deep.

About Me

Right To Share Food
At Right To Share Food, we believe that sharing food with our brothers and sisters is a fundamental human right. We believe that sharing food is a constitutionally protected activity, guaranteed under the freedom of association clause of the first amendment of The Constitution of the United States of America. We believe that sharing food outside and in public is an equally protected activity. Our goal is to promote cooperation among people in order to exercise and defend this right.
Hello; let me introduce myself. My name is Michael Hubman. I am the founder and the facilitator of Right To Share Food. Since 2007 I have been lobbying on behalf of the human and civil rights of homeless people. I operate Watercorps, a charity that gives bulk drinking water to the homeless people living on the streets of Skid Row Los Angeles.
Conflict occurs when government, most often municipalities, attempt to effect social engineering by restricting or forbidding the sharing of food on public property, the commons and even private property.
Michael “Waterman” Hubman
http://righttosharefood.org